Availability of Universal Serial Bus Support in Windows 95 (253756)

MORE INFORMATION

USB support for Windows 95 is available in Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) versions of Windows 95. If you purchased Windows 95 boxed product (the full or upgrade version) from a retail store, you have a retail version of Windows 95. Retail versions of Windows 95 cannot be upgraded to OEM versions, and there is no separate download to enable USB support in any version of Windows 95. If you have an OEM version of Windows 95 and you want to enable USB support, contact your OEM.

To determine the version of Windows 95 you are running:

1. Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click System.
2. Click the General tab.
3. Locate the version number under the System heading, and then see the following table.

   Release	Version	File dates	USB support	Is USB support downloadable?*
   Windows 95 retail	4.00.950	7/11/95	no	no
   Windows 95 retail SP1	4.00.950A	7/11/95	no	no
   OEM Service Release 1	4.00.950A	7/11/95	no	no
   OEM Service Release 2	4.00.1111 (4.00.950B)	8/24/96	no	no
   OEM Service Release 2.1	4.03.1212-1214 (4.00.950B)	8/24/96-8/27/97	yes	n/a
   OEM Service Release 2.5	4.03.1214 (4.00.950C)	8/24/96-11/18/97	yes	n/a

   
   *If you have a version of Windows 95 that does not have USB support, and you want USB support, Microsoft recommends that you upgrade to Windows 98 Second Edition.
4. If you are running an OEM version of Windows 95, the Product ID number under the Registered To heading typically contains 20 digits. If digits 6, 7, and 8 contain the letters "OEM," your version of Windows 95 is an OEM version. For example, the following sample Product ID number indicates an OEM installation:

   12345-OEM-6789098-76543

Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Version Identification

Windows 95 may have been preinstalled on your computer. These installations are referred to as OEM installations. An OEM Service Release (for example, OSR2) is an updated version of a product for PC manufacturers (OEMs) to preinstall on new PCs. The purpose is to allow OEMs to install an integrated Windows 95 product that contains the latest available individual updates and supports recent advances in hardware that require core operating system support.

Additional OEM Information

• In Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2 (OSR2), 2.1 (OSR2.1) and 2.5 (OSR2.5), not all files have the version stamp that is listed in the table. In OSR2.1 and OSR2.5, only files that were updated to provide support for the Win32 Driver Model (WDM) and USB may have this version stamp (the other files have the same version stamps as the corresponding OSR2 files).
  
  You can view file version information by right-clicking a file in Windows Explorer, clicking Properties on the menu that appears, and then clicking the Version tab. If there is no Version tab, there is no version information available for that file.
• Updates to Windows 95 OEM OSR2 generally have a version of 4.00.1112 or later.
• To determine whether you are running OSR2.1, check for "USB Supplement to OSR2" in the list of installed programs in the Add/Remove Programs tool in Control Panel, and check for version 4.03.1212 of the Ntkern.vxd file in the Windows\System\Vmm32 folder.
• If you are running OSR2.5 and you uninstall the USB Supplement by using the Add/Remove Programs tool in Control Panel, the version number changes to 4.00.950b on the General tab in System properties.

NOTE: All versions of Microsoft Windows 98 include USB support.